Adrift in Time
by etienneofthewestwind
Summary: When Kushina, Team Minato, and Hatake Sakumo find themselves dragged through time to a Konoha that houses folk from another dimension, nothing will ever be the same. Featuring med-nin!Sasuke, Mokuton!Sakura, and controlled!Tobito.
1. Chapter 1

**Adrift in Time**

 **by** **étienneofthewestwind**

Hiruzen wondered if the universe enjoyed tormenting him. First extradimensional folk fall into his domain, and now, faces out of time. Hiruzen could only hope that this would heal, not further break a talented jōnin.

At least he could re-retire soon.

This was inspired by "Glimpse of a Shattered Soul", by SilasSolarius (posted as claw06 on ) and written with permission.

I only own a copy of the books and various discs.

* * *

The minute Kakashi entered the clearing, a red-haired menace pounced. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and ruffled his silver hair as she crowed. "Way to go brat!"

"Get off." Kakashi pulled out of Kushina's grasp as Rin joined them and Minato-sensei in the clearing. Kakashi liked his sensei's wife—most of the time—but Kakashi could do without her exuberance. Kushina just laughed and reached out to ruffle his hair again. Kakashi barely avoided her.

The next minute, Obito crashed out of the woods. He landed face-first in the grass. "Did I make it?" the black-haired Uchiha asked as he picked himself up.

"No, you're late." Kakashi ignored his sensei's look. A minute late was still late. And the idiot needed all the push he could get to further improve.

Obito grimaced at his watch. He looked about to say something when Rin put a hand on his shoulder. "Do we have a mission, Sensei?" Rin asked.

Minato-sensei nodded, his blond hair dulled in the dusk light. "We leave in the morning, but before we brief—"

"WE CELEBRATE!" Kushina exclaimed as she unfurled a storage scroll on the ground. A chakra spike later and the scent of cooked beef filled the air as five plates popped out of the scroll. Kakashi wondered how many ration tickets she had to save up to get beef under the current war restrictions.

"Celebrate?" Rin asked.

"Kakashi's been promoted to jōnin," Minato announced. "It's official tomorrow."

"Jōnin, huh?" Obito murmured a frown on his face as he stared at a tree.

"Got a problem with that, idiot?" Kakashi demanded.

Obito huffed and crossed his arms. "Just don't expect any gifts from me," he muttered.

Kakashi's fists clenched as he suppressed a flash of hurt. "Like I'd want anything a loser like you would come up with," he growled.

"Good," Obito turned and lifted his goggles to wipe at his eyes.

"Now, bo—" Minato-sensei's words cut off as sound and scents switched places in a roaring maelstrom. A swirl of colors filled Kakashi's vision. Up became down while down became left. He tasted tickles— Abruptly the world righted itself. Except he now stood in a clearly battle-damaged arena. Cooked and burnt human flesh clogged Kakashi's nose as he caught sight of Jiraiya, the third Hokage and several other leaf ninjas, ANBU members included in front of him. Around Kakashi stood Kushina, Kakashi's team, and a man who looked like Kakashi's father.

Kakashi stopped and then reversed his chakra flow. When the obvious genjutsu failed to dispel, he tried again, using the release hand sign. Still no change in surroundings. He saw and felt those around him making similar efforts.

Kushina turned to Minato-sensei. "Were you messing with space/time techniques?" she demanded.

"That was _not_ what I meant when I described my first Hiraishin failure as a psychedelic trip," Minato-sensei said dryly. Kushina's eyes narrowed. "This wasn't me."

The Third turned toward them. "Wait a moment, please," he said as Jiraiya picked up a fallen shinobi. Kakashi could only see a tuft of silver hair and an arm in Konoha attire. "I'll explain in my office. For now, transform into non-descript shinobi." Kakashi gave himself all black attire and Rin's brown hair. Rin gave herself dark blue hair and hid her purple clan markings. Obito just hid his clan emblem. Minato-sensei and Kushina turned their hair brown with the standard jōnin uniform.

And the man who resembled Hatake Sakumo gave himself dirty-blond hair and bland features.

The Hokage then turned away and gave the standing leaf shinobi a speech about valiant fights and the tree growing stronger despite the losses. Kakashi only half-listened. He had never been summoned, but his experience did not match the descriptions. And not even Obito would have failed to notice a battle in the middle of the village.

Or the entire village, Kakashi amended as the Third led them through the village. Whole blocks lay in ruins, and the occasional sounds of fighting reached the group. They moved slowly, the Hokage taking his time to give orders to various shinobi—and to be seen alive and well, no doubt. As the Hokage conducted his business, Kakashi examined the fallen shinobi. Some were leaf, of course, but the enemy corpses… While Kakashi recognized the sand symbol, the quarter note on other headbands did not match any village he had ever heard of.

"Sensei," Obito spoke pointing off to the side.

"We'll worry about that later," Minato-sensei murmured as he gently pushed Obito's arm back down. "Right now, Konoha needs Lord Third's leadership and assurances more than we do."

Kakashi frowned and turned in the direction Obito had indicated. Through the clearing smoke and dust, the Hokage monument was visible in the now-midday light. _Four_ faces looked down upon them. The extra face bore a strong resemblance to Minato-sensei.

* * *

Sakumo stepped back from the other time-displaced people standing to the left side of Sarutobi's office. He slumped against the wall. Concern over the village had boosted his energy, but that had faded and Sakumo felt the all-consuming lethargy of late come back. So, he let the wall support him as he took in the revelations.

Nineteen years.

Given his son's leap in height, Sakumo had quickly suspected that he had somehow been summoned through time as well as space. It took longer to realize the same held true for Kakashi and his teammates. And the weight of how long Konoha had aged felt surreal—as did this meeting. It made sense that Sarutobi sat working behind his desk with minimum attention on the group—the village had been attacked and relevant reports were coming in. It also made sense to have them all examined by the medic nin who initially looked over the shinobi that Jiraiya had laid on a futon at the other side of the office. An exam from a strange civilian that involved a stick waved at each of them, made less sense.

Obviously the stick was part of some sort of jutsu, as a floating scroll filled with rōmaji in response to each wave. When the rōmaji quit filling the scroll, the civilian tapped the scroll with the stick. It dropped into her hand. Sarutobi looked up expectantly. The woman absently brushed a strand of red hair behind her ear as she studied the contents. "Well, Hokage-sama," she said, a strange accent to her words. "Their _base magic_ readings—"

"What's basu magicu?" Kakashi's Uchiha teammate asked.

The woman turned to him. "It's how your energy resonates with the world around you. In your case, it tells me that you are all native to this world and not one that holds alternate versions of the people in this one."

"Other mes exist?" Minato asked at the same time Kakashi said "Seriously?".

"It's a hypothesized possibility," the woman said off-handedly. She turned back to her report. A minute later, she sighed. "Unfortunately, they are all unmoored in the timestream—they have no connection to their native time. Normally for such a sizable jump, cutting their connection to now would return them to when they disappeared. In this case, there's no way to know when—if at all—they would reemerge."

"I see," Sarutobi said gravely from behind his desk. "Thank you, Prewett-san. You may go."

"That's it?" Kushina asked. "What about how we _do_ get back?"

"I'm afraid you don't," the Hokage responded. He wrote something on the paper in front of him. "The means Prewett's people use to turn time cannot be recreated in this world. I know of no other technique to transverse time."

The weight of that statement hung in the room a moment before Minato cursed. "Our disappearance must have caused problems for the war. We were a day away from taking a critical mission."

"Won it fourteen years ago, Sensei," a voice mumbled. A second later, the same voice said " _What_!?"

Jiraiya helped the injured shinobi sit up, with murmured instructions to take it easy. Sakumo barely heard him as he stared at an adult, one-eyed version of his son. Face mask included.

A version of his son only seven years younger than Sakumo.

Sarutobi cleared his throat as he grabbed another report off the pile on his desk. "As I was about to say, you didn't disappear. You completed the Kannabi mission, though Obito fell in battle." The Uchiha flinched at Sarutobi's words. "All of you—"

The office doors opened, and three genin walked in: another Uchiha with spikey blue-black hair and a scowl on his face, blond boy in orange with the Uzumaki crest and a pug ninken in his arms, and a girl with her hitai-ate on her forehead, but tied under her short, pink hair, which gave it a feral look. She had white circles on her red outfit. The blonde looked about to say something, but the Uchiha nudged his attention to the adult Kakashi.

"—Bar Kakashi, have died by this time," Sarutobi continued as the genin gravitated to Kakashi's side. "Our Kakashi interfered with a jutsu intended to reanimate and control the dead. I believe it resulted in your being brought here, while another version of you stayed in the timestream."

"How can you be certain?" Kushina asked.

"It's the conclusion the evidence supports," Sarutobi said. "And while I'd normally be happy to discuss it in depth, I have to attend to the village's recovery. I'm assigning Kakashi and Genin Cell 7 to help you adjust to our time. You will stay secluded in the Hatake compound until—"

"No!" The Uchiha on Kakashi's team stepped forward. "Forgive me sir, but my grandmother has already lost my parents and uncle. I can't let her think I'm still gone."

The adult Kakashi sighed as he stood. "Obito, sit down." Kakashi walked to one of the chairs in front of the Hokage's desk.

"She deserves to know," The Uchiha ignored the adult Kakashi as he slid the chair over to him. "Please, sir!"

"Obito—"

"Damn it, Bakakashi!" Obito whirled, his fists clenched. "You don't what it's like to have someone depending on your return!"

"She's dead!" Kakashi snapped back. Obito's face paled as Sarutobi face palmed. Kakashi's eye widened. He cursed. "That's not how I should have told you. I didn't mean to—"

"She's gone? How?" Obito demanded.

Kakashi sighed. "There's no good way to tell you this, but five years ago your whole clan, except for Sasuke here, was massacred by their star prodigy before he fled the village."

* * *

Obito found himself sitting in the chair. His elbows rested on his knees as he stared at the floor. Kakashi—the one with a voice too deep and hands too large—stood by his side and talked him through deep breaths. Minato came to his other side. "Did you have to dump the massacre on him too, kid?" a voice said from across the room. "Couldn't you give him a day or two to adjust?"

"And what, Jiraiya?" Kakashi's voice snapped back in his ear. "Lie so he could have the shock of her death twice?"

"You could have neglected to mention that anyone else had been killed."

One of the genin scoffed. "With all the civies and shinobi that are gaga over Sasuke as the last Uchiha? He could've found out on our way to the compound."

"How's it even possible?" Obito croaked as the pink-haired kunoichi hissed at her teammate. "Surely some would have missions, and the commotion would draw attention. Get enough people, and even the most talented shinobi will fall."

"It is unusual, but no Uchiha were out of the village," the Hokage said grimly. "Most of the clan were slaughtered in their sleep, and we believe a genjutsu powerful enough to overcome the Sharingan was used for the rest."

"And that's it?" Obito barely recognized his voice as he looked up at the Hokage. "A whole clan gone, and no one noticed it happening?" Obito clenched his fists, his nails digging painfully into his palms.

"I'm afraid so," the Hokage said gravely. "Itachi clearly planned his strike—"

Kushina gasped as Obito's blood ran cold. "Not Mikoto's boy!" Kushina exclaimed.

"I babysat that brat last week!" Obito exploded. He stood and paced restlessly as pressure built back up in his chest. "He said he was sick of clansmen coming back dead! He—ARRR!" Obito turned and leaped out the window. He sprinted off the minute he hit the ground, heedless of where in the night he went.


	2. Chapter 2

If you're interested, chapter one has been edited for improved flow. It is not necessary to reread.

* * *

" _Huh. At this angle, it looks like a blue pikachu," Mafalda Prewet said as she hovered over Luna's shoulder. Luna did her best to ignore the woman while she sat at Prewet's desk and cast diagnostic spells at a teal and white creature that resembled a rabbit as it sat inside a birdcage on the desk._

" _What's a peek-at-you?" Marcus Flint asked from the next desk over._

" _It's a fictional character from a Muggle children's game," she said. "It's a yellow, over-grown mouse that can shoot lightning bolts."_

" _Well, Blue Pikachu has no such abilities, just venom," Luna said as she examined the parchment with the diagnostic results. "Though the name's more fitting than Evidence Delta-Sigma-Dee-Zed-Alpha-Dash-Thirteen-Zero-Four."_

" _Ministry regulations, Luv," Flint said. "All documents and any testimony must refer to the animal by evidence tag. Otherwise, you can call her Father Christmas, for all anyone cares."_

 _Luna hummed as she continued to examine her results. "Did you really find Blue here at an illegal crossbreeder?"_

" _Why do you ask?" Prewet asked sharply—too sharply for Luna not to be on something._

" _She has none of the typical markers of magical experimentation. Nor anything I'd call an atypical sign, for that matter. Her base magic is out of sync with the world's, though."_

" _She was seized from a group suspected of creating an illegal time turner," Flint said. "Couldn't that account for your readings?"_

 _Luna frowned as she thought about it. "If she were several generations removed from the original experiments, the markers could have been bred out, but base magic is considered constant. No amount of time—" Luna's eyes widened as realization hit. She turned to look Prewet in the eye. "You think she came from an entirely different world!"_

" _What makes you say that?" Prewet demanded._

" _I just know. That happens sometimes."_

 _Prewet scoffed._

" _You're right about the different world, but I can't find any evidence beyond the base magic difference." Luna stood and rolled her parchment up. "I can have my full report done in a couple hours. Should I write it somewhere here?"_

 _The door to room slammed open. A blonde man tripped just past the door. As he hit the floor, a red stunner flew over his head. Luna threw herself to the right as the stunner flew towards Prewet's desk. Something on the desk started quacking in response to the spell._

" _SHIT!" Prewet cursed from where she had hit the floor on the other side of her desk. She whipped out her wand as aurors pounced on the intruder. "Stay back!" She pointed her wand at the desk—_

 _And Luna fell through the floor. She landed on a long table with chairs to her right. Several elderly people had just scrambled out of the chairs. To the left, Prewet and her desk had hit the floor. Numerous uniformed people leapt up from where they sat on the floor and grabbed various sharp weapons—mostly knives—as they moved. A foot above her, she could look up into the Ministry room and the shocked faces of Flint and Percy Weasley._

When did he show up? _Luna wondered as a silver-haired man in a painted white mask shouted something at her. Luna did not understand him, but the short sword he held to her throat said enough. Luna stilled as men rushed Flint and Weasley, who had their wands pointed into the room. The quaking grew in intensity. Something that landed next to Prewet's desk exploded, its pieces scattered though both the strange room and the Ministry room. The Ministry room vanished from sight._

So this is why I knew to carry my bottomless bag today, _Luna thought…_

* * *

Luna blinked out of the memories. She stood at the railing before her apartment door. In the dim light of the setting sun, it was hard to see the damage the village took. _It could be worse,_ she thought, _but we still have our work cut out for us._ Six years ago, Luna never imagined that she would think of the village as home. But with no way back to her world, she had adjusted to her new reality. With a sigh, Luna turned and unlocked her apartment door.

Tears streamed down Obito's face as he ran through Konoha. He knew that running out on the Hokage was not the brightest move, but the need to hit things had all but consumed him. The running eased some of the pressure, but not enough. After a minute, Obito had aimed for a training ground near the Uchiha compound. While primarily for beginners, it should have some wooden posts for him to hit.

If it even existed.

Obito should have passed the Uchiha compound by now. But instead he had passed by a series of unfamiliar buildings. Obito slowed, and after some circling, found the training ground. He treated the closest post to a flurry of punches and kicks that did not let up until the post split. And the next two.

Suddenly exhausted, Obito sat on the ground.

"Feel any better?" Startled, Obito looked to the first damaged post. A familiar pug sat on it. Like Kakashi, Pakkun had grown. He now wore a blue vest as well as a Konoha hitai-ate as a headband. The pug held up a paw. "Yo. Long time no see."

"Kakashi sent you."

Pakkun snorted. "I followed you out the window before anyone else could. The last thing we needed was anyone else from your time loose in Konoha."

"Because the dead aren't needed," Obito spat.

Pakkun had Kakashi's unimpressed expression down pat. "Kid, Konoha was just attacked by forces lead by Orochimaru—" Obito's jaw dropped— "someone who's still a loyal ninja to you lot. Now he's an infamous traitor with penchant for inhumane experiments. The village wall and barrier need repairs. None of you have valid IDs. And for five years, that fan on your back has been exclusive to Sasuke, who you don't resemble that much. You could be taken as a sloppy attempt at infiltration. Or worse."

"Oh." Obito felt stupid. As a chūnin, he should have thought of that. _Well, not the Orichimaru-traitor bits, but still…_ "And the compound?" he asked. "I know the dead don't need the space, but… did they have to race to tear it down?"

Pakkun looked briefly puzzled, before his eyes widened in understanding. "The Uchiha relocated after an attack twelve years ago." Obito frowned. He could not see the clan elders allowing that. "The compound you remember got trampled."

" _Trampled!?"_

"Hide the fan." Pakkun stood. "I'll show you the new compound, so you can pay your respects. That is," the dog turned to the nearby trees, "if it's acceptable to your orders."

* * *

"I've got this!" a pug called as he leapt from the pinkhead's arms and barreled out the window after Obito.

"Was that Pakkun?" Minato asked as he fought the urge to race after his wayward student despite the glare Hiruzen fixed on him and his fellow time travelers. Sarutobi made a signal, and Minato felt one of the hidden ANBU disappear.

"There will be an announcement and explanation given to the village," Sarutobi said. "But the village does not need the confusion your open presence before then would cause. You _will_ stay in the Hatake compound until notified. Reapply your transformations until you reach it.

"Team seven, collect any supplies you need and collect your charges from conference room four. Jiraiya, Kaka—Present Time Kakashi—remain a moment."

Minato guided his two present students out of the room, Kakashi—his Kakashi—scowled and pointedly ignored his transformed father as he stalked out of the room. The doors closed behind them and the silencing seals reactivated. A minute later, Minato sat on a sofa and stared at his Hokage portrait on a wall. The portrait seemed to stare back mockingly. While he had long dreamed of becoming Hokage, Minato knew that he was not yet ready to effectively lead Konoha. Would the populace expect him to take the hat right away? Or had the third found another successor? Would Minato never achieve his dream while knowing that he _had_ achieved his dream?

The genin began to return. First, the pinkhead and then the strangely familiar blonde. Neither of them seemed more inclined than the time travelers to say anything. A few minutes passed before Sasuke showed up, Pakkun and transformed Obito in tow. "Sorry," Obito muttered sullenly.

Kushina pulled him into a bear hug. "Trust me, we understand." Before anything else can be said, Jiraiya and the other Kakashi collected them. The route to the Hatake compound had not seen as much fighting as the stadium. The compound itself stood unscathed, a large barrier seal plastered over the front gate. Minato frowned at the seal. It could be activated and deactivated, but it was not a convenient setup. "You moved out?" Minato asked.

The older Kakashi nodded. "There was some damage when I was fourteen. In the end, I decided to stay in my apartment until marriage." Kakashi cut a thumb with a kunai and swiped blood across the center of the seal. "The damage was repaired, and I've got preservation seals on the buildings and paths. My last inspection and maintenance was two months ago, so aside from tall grass and poor landscaping, it should be fine." Kakashi opened the gates. Once the group had passed through, Kakashi closed the gates—and fed chakra back into the seal from the other side of the gate.

Kakashi strode to the front of the group and lead the way to a large, traditional house. "Anyway, it's been a long day, and I need to debrief my genin. We'll bunk up in the southern room. The rest of you… Feel free to take any of the others." Kakashi pulled a few storage scrolls out of a pouch. He tossed two to Kushina. "There's rations and instant ramen in those, if anyone's hungry." Kakashi stepped onto the house's porch.

* * *

The minute Kakashi shut the door behind him, he slapped a privacy seal over the door. He forced himself to take deep breaths as he sat on the floor, eyes closed, back against the door. "Sensei?" Sakura asked as Kakashi felt his students gather around him.

Kakashi did his best to wave reassuringly. "It really _has_ been a long day." He opened his eyes and looked at the three genin seated before him in the empty room. "And it's about to get longer."

"Is this about the kyūbi?" Naruto blurted. "Because I know transforming Gamabunta into it was not the best move, but my mind blanked and time ran out—"

Kakashi held up a hand. "Back up a bit. _Why_ were you transforming Gamabunta?"

"Gaara didn't exactly let us follow your orders not to engage," Sakura said. "Something about killing another jinchūriki being the ultimate proof of existence, while being offended that Sasuke and I called Naruto friend."

"He started giving the Ichibi a physical form with his sand," Naruto said. "And put himself in a trance to let it take over. Gamabunta needed a form with fangs and claws to hold on to it while I clobbered Gaara out of his jutsu. But there wasn't time for him to transform and then run at Shukakku, so I had to do the transformation for him." Naruto scratched the back of his head. "At least it worked?"

Kakashi broke into hysterical giggles at the shear _Naruto_ level ridiculousness of the situation. His children likely thought him cracked, but at least he had explained that stress could cause people to have atypical reactions. Kakashi silently thanked Luna for suggesting that training trip early on. Stress and how to handle it was one of many topics that came up.

"I'm sorry, Sensei. Next time, I'll—"

"I would hope that there isn't a next time," Kakashi bit out. "For all our sakes." He forced himself back into a semblance of control. "The kyūbi is a ghost of past loss, but hardly the only one today." Kakashi glanced toward the next room, where he felt the other chakra signatures gathered. "Any fallout depends on who and how many saw it. If the alternative was to get slaughtered by Gaara, you made the right choice." He reached forward and ruffled Naruto's hair.

"I lost control of the curse mark during the fight," Sasuke muttered after a minute's silence. He stared at the floor, his hands shaking in fists.

All traces of hysteria vanished. "Show me." Kakashi raised his headband to examine the curse mark with his Sharingan. The mark's foul chakra raged and pushed against the barrier formed by Kakashi's sealing jutsu. No wisp passed beyond the seal, but it was more active than the last time Kakashi had examined it. "It seems contained now, but I'd like my sensei and his wife to look at it. They may be able to come up with something Jiraiya hasn't."

"Pervert-sage?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi snorted at the nickname. "He often doesn't seem like much, but he is—was—the top seal master in the village. Minato-sensei and Kushina are better." Kakashi sighed. He studied his genin. They could so easily have perished due to his orders, but they came through alive and intact. "I really should debrief you all ASAP, but there's something else to discuss. When the Hokage held me back, he gave me permission to reveal certain classified facts."

"Like my parents?" Naruto asked sounding uncharacteristically bitter. Kakashi raised his eyebrow. "They introduced themselves with full names, and…" Naruto shrugged. "It's not like I don't get why it might have been kept quiet, but I've proven I can keep a secret, haven't I?"

"You have. All of you. And it's not unrelated…"

* * *

"Should I wake him, Sensei?"

Minato stood at the door to the room his students had camped out in. Rin and Obito were up and had folded their futons off to the side. Kakashi lay sprawled on his futon, unaware of the world. It was unusual for Obito to wake before Kakashi, and more unusual that the movement of his team had not stirred Kakashi.

"Go ahead," Minato told Rin. She knelt and reached out, pulsing her chakra in the pattern Team Minato used to identify themselves in the field.

Instead of recognizing Rin as a friend, the waking Kakashi seized her wrist and threw her down to the floor in front of him. Minato rushed into the room as Obito cried out and Kakashi's eyes widened.

"Rin!" Kakashi cried and wrapped his arms around the girl. Then he pulled back. "I dreamed—I'm sorry."

"It must have been intense to make you glomp her like that," Kushina said from the doorway. "Does our young jōnin have a crush?"

Obito clenched his fists while Kakashi sprung to his feet. "It's nothing like that," Kakashi growled as he picked up his futon.

"I don't know," Kushina continued her teasing. "They say that dreams are sometimes secret wishes—"

"NEVER!" Kakashi threw his futon aside as he glared at Kushina. The whole room stared as him before Kakashi mumbled something about needing air. Minato laid a hand on Kakashi's shoulder as the boy moved to walk past him. Kakashi glared up at him a second, before something in the boy's eyes crumbled. "Rin and I were being pursued. Herded. There was this attack—I aimed it at an enemy, but then she was dying from it, and I _wanted_ it to be a dream so much I thought she was an imposter when—" Kakashi pulled back, his hands fisted. Minato could see Kakashi force the turmoil from his face. "It—"

"It's the weirdness of coming here," Obito muttered as he started folding Kakashi's futon, an act that surprised Minato. "They don't mean anything."

"Of course it doesn't!" Kakashi snapped. Then he frowned. "They? You guys dreamed of accidentally killing people?"

Minato had not dreamed at all. Rin shook her head while Kushina frowned at Obito.

Obito sighed. "I died. And got revived only to have half my body chopped off and replaced with alien plant parts. Disturbing, and unusually vivid but nothing more than that. Like yours."

"Maybe, maybe not," Minato said. "This situation… it's different than war time stresses, so your established coping methods may need to be added onto. All of us could do with increased introspection, I'm sure."

* * *

Kakashi frowned as he led his students back to the house. He had done what he could to stretch the morning's training out, but could only put off the next conversation for so long. _It's better to get it over with, anyway,_ he thought. _Waiting won't do them any favors._

Not if they moved up their dreams of a large family, anyway.

"…Ould have told us a time so we're not sitting around waiting all day," Obito's grumbling voice reached Kakashi as the group reached the house.

Kakashi suppressed a smirk as he opened the door. "Sorry we're late. My favorite bookstore was closed for repairs and then there was this enchanting moon."

Everyone stared. Various expressions of bewilderment or disgruntlement covered the time travelers' faces. Obito and mini-Kakashi were particularly amusing. They looked like they had been slapped with a cold fish.

"That's a terrible excuse kid," Jiraiya said flatly.

Kakashi shrugged. He joined the group sitting on the floor of the main room and opened his storage scroll. As his students sat around him, he made a note to see about furnishing the house. The storage scrolls were around somewhere. "It's true. Major events are easy, but there are many little things that have happened and changed. I thought copies of some books would prevent stuff from being overlooked." He unsealed his first stack and ignored Jiraiya's comment about seeing the moon in midday. "Recent history, current laws and regulations, social commentaries, stuff like that. We'll start with the major events, so you'll have time to look over these before later discussions. But first, how do you want to do this?"

Kakashi rolled up the storage scroll. "The major events—there are things that'll impact some of you more than others. Do you want me to take individual meetings to privately break the news beforehand, or just go over the material once, but in front of everyone?"

"If you're talking about my death, I don't need details, or want it harped on," Obito muttered. arms around his chest. Rin nodded in apparent agreement. "Just that the mission succeeded is enough," Obito finished.

Kakashi quashed the urge to rub his left eye. "It's not quite that simple, I'm afraid. What about the rest of you?"

"There's nothing you can tell me that Minato and the rest can't hear at the same time," Kushina said. Everyone else agreed with her.

* * *

The future version of Kakashi watched the room silently for a minute after Kushina's declaration. "I guess we might as well start with the biggest," he said.

 _The massacre,_ Obito thought. _Or does he consider it covered enough?"_

"Twelve, nearly thirteen, years ago, The Leaf suffered an internal security breach sometime before our jinchūriki was due to give birth." Kushina stiffened as Minato grabbed her hand. "An unknown party attacked and managed to remove the kyūbi and transport it into the middle of the village."

Kushina's hands flew to her face as she looked at the older Kakashi with horror. Minato looked grimmer than Obito ever remembered seeing him before. And with the war, Minato-sensei had looked damn grim at times.

"How many?" Kushina demanded at the same time Obito asked "What's a kyūbi?".

"Or a jinchūriki," Rin added.

"The nine-tailed fox. It's one of the nine bijū, or tailed beasts," Minato-sensei said. "They are destructive creatures of living chakra. They're kept sealed within special shinobi to protect the villages and countries from the beasts' rampages. We're _extremely_ lucky that entire village was not annihilated." Kushina flinched as Minato-sensei turned to the adult Kakashi. "My question is, were we able to seal it, or was it dispersed?"

Obito frowned at Minato-sensei's expression. "Why's that a problem?" Kakashi beat Obito to the question. "If these creatures are so dangerous, why not destroy them?"

"You can't kill a bijū," the older Kakashi answered. "If their chakra loses cohesion, it will eventually reform, generally where it was last. You sealed it, Sensei, though it dealt you and Kushina-nee mortal blows before the seal was complete."

"And the new jinchūriki?" Minato-sensei asked. "Those willing to take on the burden are not always seen as the shield against the beast rather than the beast. Given events, the shinobi in the know, they aren't… cruel to their comrade, are they?"

The blonde brat on future-Kakashi's team snorted as a strange look crossed said Kakashi's face. "Sensei, you didn't have time to test the ranks for chakra compatibility. With… the new mother unable to survive a second sealing, you went with the one other individual who'd already survived concentrated bijū chakra." Kakashi sighed as Kushina looked stricken. "With the numbers on the battlefield—well, the entire village knew by morning. And no, not everyone views jinchūriki as you do. Though Lord Third did express your sentiment as a dying wish for the villagers to follow before he spelled out the consequences of causing trouble." The man's eyes swept Obito and his teammates. "The jinchūriki and circumstances surrounding the attack are classified knowledge. I was only authorized to tell you as much as I have, due to the questions any seal master would have when faced with the 'kyūbi attacked; the Forth defeated it' that they teach at the academy. You will not speak of learning anything beyond that."

Obito gulped. This strange Kakashi could be scary. Obito nodded, along with Rin and Kakashi. The other Kakashi smiled and turned away.

"You never answered my question about casualties, brat," Kushina said after a minute.

The silver-haired man sighed. "A third of our forces. A few thousand civilians."

"I see. I need some air." Kushina stood and walked out of the room. Minato excused himself and followed.

"Why would the jinchūriki be seen as the bijū?" Rin asked after they left. "We use storage scrolls all the time."

"A storage scroll can't draw upon a kunai's sharpness while containing it," Kakashi the sensei said. "Also, there _have_ been some faulty seals, particularly in Suna. I assure you, that is not something you need to worry about with Konoha."

"Sounds lonely," Rin said as she stared at the door.

Kakashi eye smiled and reached past his younger self to place his hand on Rin's head. "It does, doesn't it?"

* * *

Minato found Kushina by the edge of a stream that cut through the Hatake land. Kushina, and the ground around her, were soaked. Any earlier rage had faded, the woman just sat with her chin on her knees as she stared at the water. Minato pulsed his chakra as he went to sit next to her. Words failed him as he put an arm around her. Minato just hoped that things would get easier from here.

* * *

Sakumo sighed as he walked through the overgrown mess that was once his wife's garden. Its quality had declined after her death, but it not been this jumbled mess of weeds and intended plants out of their spots before Sakumo's death. Before his _suicide_. That revelation had been a shock when Jiraiya had balled him out for it that first morning. And yet… Sakumo could not say the thought had never crossed his mind. Not seriously, but it had occurred as the only way he could fix a life that he had tangled up more than this garden.

Except that things had gotten worse after Sakumo's death. He had failed to think that Kakashi might find his body or consider how Kakashi would handle being left alone. Sakumo could not escape such things now. Whether the open hostility of the younger version of his son, or the stilting, superficial attempts at conversation of the eldest, Sakumo could not miss that he left scars behind. Or the loss of trust. If Jiraiya was not with him, the adult Kakashi was. The latter mostly lurked near him, but it was obvious that the pair were trying to prevent any attempt at suicide.

Sakumo hated it. But how could he prove himself and try to fix things, when he could not even fix the garden?

An adult Kakashi bounded up the hill. The one watching Sakumo from the roof of the house vanished in a puff of smoke. _A shadow clone._ Sakumo sighed and walked into the main room after him. He did not want another "history" lesson. The kyūbi may have been the biggest event covered, but Sakumo had learned plenty that he did not want over the subsequent meetings: Hyūga-Cloud incident… the bloodline purges in Mist…

Orochimaru.

That his friend could so completely turn on Konoha still boggled Sakumo. Orochimaru's loyalty always seemed fanatical. And while he was never the warmest or most compassionate individual, the experiments Jiraiya described were hard for Sakumo to imagine.

"Okay!" the grown Kakashi said cheerfully once the time travelers and Jiraiya had assembled around the tow traditional tables that Kakashi had dug out of storage several days earlier. "I know we're all sick of being cooped up in here constantly for the last none days."

" _You_ leave every day," his counterpart said.

"And while the village hasn't been _entirely_ rebuilt, there are differences. From both twelve years ago and the current attack. And the Hokage did order us to bring you up to speed on _all_ changes before your presence is announced."

" _When_ is he going to do that?" Obito asked.

The adult Kakashi smiled and clapped his hands together. "So, I've talked to the Hokage about it, and he agreed to allow you to tour the village under your transformations. Naturally, we've had to come up with a training mission to cover any curiosity. Your goal will be to minimize chakra leakage, while Jiraiya and I accompany you and vouch for you should it be necessary. Meanwhile, my whole team will also be under disguise and trade off on tailing us. My genins' goal will be to avoid your detection and learn to better detect strained transformations.

"I need to brief my team and give them time to plan, so I'll meet the rest of you in an hour in front of the Cat's Kunai Café. It's just down the road from the compound gates. Bye." The man disappeared in a puff of smoke.

* * *

"Where the hell, is he?" Kakashi growled as the group stood in front of the café and waited for the adult Kakashi.

"I'm sure he'll be here soon," Minato assured the currently brown-haired teem. Privately, Minato wondered if something had happened. The village _was_ recently attacked, and Kakashi had always been punctual.

"He _should_ have been here fifteen minutes ago," Kakashi said.

"I'm sure he has his reasons," Sakumo said.

Kakashi turned and glared at his father's blonde disguise. "The shinobi handbook clearly states that a ninja should be punctual _without fail_."

Laughter greeted that statement. Minato turned and saw that it came from the brown-haired man who had been sitting at one of the tables in front of the café. "Sorry," the man said and held up a hand as he placed his teacup between a camera and a plate with a slice of barely-eaten chocolate cake. "You just reminded me of someone I used to know, talking about the handbook like that."

Kakashi scowled. "You shouldn't have been eavesdropping."

"Kid, this is a ninja village, and you were not being quiet. Also, I was here before your group arrived. Perhaps you should work on observing your surroundings." Kakashi glared at the man as his adult self finally walked up.

"Name's Sukea, by the way…"


	3. Chapter 3

" _What did you find out?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked as he entered the room, his advisors and ANBU guard behind him. Morino Ibiki and Yamanaka Inoichi sat at the conference table. The latter held an icepack to his head, his long blonde tail loose from its tie. Along the opposite wall, video monitors showed T &I's various interview rooms. Hiruzen quickly spotted the four showing the building's latest "guests". The red-haired woman and the black-haired man were pacing in their respective rooms. The red-haired man sat at attention, his tension betrayed by his rapidly tapping foot. The blonde woman seemed fascinated by a random spot on the wall._

 _Inoichi looked up as Hiruzen sat across from him. "It was an accident that opened a rift between our worlds," Inoichi said. Then he winced and adjusted the icepack as the advisors sat next to Hiruzen. "They had seized a suspected illegal time travel device, which was in their R &D department for examination when a stray jutsu hit it. The device was the object that blew half its parts back into the other world, so it's unlikely to be reconstructed, if those in their world even realized what happened. The red-haired male didn't see our world until he stood almost on top of the rift. As we grabbed the men from our side, they likely just disappeared to any onlookers."_

" _So invasion from their world's not a threat," Koharu said from where she sat on Hiruzen's left. "But what about them? Are they enemies of their world's Leaf?"_

" _There is no Leaf-equivalent, or equivalent for any of the Elemental Nations as far as I can tell. There are some superficial similarities between our world and a country called Japan, but nothing close enough to make them automatically friends or enemies." Inoichi frowned as he pulled the icepack off his head and set in on the table. "They are from a country called UK. Three of them work for their government, while the blonde is wildlife researcher they called to consult on the venom-spitting rabbit. Apparently, the rabbit was seized along with the device that sent them here and is no more from their world than ours._

" _The blonde's mind most was the most foreign to navigate, but she should be the most likely to adjust to a life in Konoha. She has a unique outlook that will help her adapt. The others… the men will be harder to come around since they are here due to our actions, not happenstance. Additionally, their culture is very different from ours. Less militaristic with the closest thing they have to our academy graduating at seventeen. There will likely be strong negative opinions about our shinobi program if we do attempt to integrate them into Konoha._

" _That said," Inoichi picked up the icepack and placed it back on his head. "Their odd chakra should not respond as smoothly as it does in their world—the blonde has some sort of sensory abilities—further, their chakra pools in cores that they mostly use external foci to tap into. They are unlikely to provide a threat we cannot handle. However, any children they have would likely be in tune with our world. That could merely be decent chakra reserves, or it could result in a new Kekkei Genkai."_

" _In the hands of kids with questionable loyalty," Horuma scoffed. "Hardly worth the risk."_

 _Hiruzen frowned as he considered his former teammate's words. He had a point, but… "I want to see Inu in my office," he told the cat masked ANBU standing behind him. "Immediately."_

 _Hiruzen stood and mentally reviewed the other ANBU he could ask for what he had in mind…_

* * *

 _The sun peaked out from beneath the clouds as Kakashi wearily made his way to his apartment. He hopped along the rooftops to avoid getting drawn into conversation. The last time he had had an exhausting mission, Kakashi had made the mistake of walking through the market. Somehow, he had crossed paths with everyone he had not seen in a while._

 _And they all had wanted to catch up._

 _Roof jumping may take more physical effort, but at least ninja generally realized that the jumper had somewhere to be. Even if that somewhere was a real bed surrounded by blackout curtains and seals to silence all but his traps and security alarms._

 _As Kakashi landed on the rooftop next to his apartment building, he hesitated. On the balcony that ran in front of the apartments on Kakashi's level, was his new neighbor Luna. She sat on one of two chairs that she had set next to the front door of her apartment alongside a small glass table. Luna sat in the left chair, as usual. Instead of book, Luna held a mug and stared down at the street as she cried._

 _That was not usual._

 _Kakashi closed his eyes and sighed. He wanted to be asleep. The Hokage_ had _asked him to keep an eye on Luna, when he ordered Kakashi's move out of the ANBU barracks. But that was passive observations when the opportunity arose. Kakashi's orders in no way mandated interaction, much less intrusion on her personal business. There was no reason Kakashi could not just slip in his back window. He had done it plenty of times when Luna was more likely to welcome company._

 _With a deep breath, Kakashi leaped and landed on the railing. "Yo!"_

 _Across from him, Luna blinked. Her too-expressive face showed Kakashi surprise and confusion. "Neighbor-san," she greeted coolly._

" _Are you all right?" Kakashi gestured at her tear-stained face._

" _Fine. Just… a bad day. You can ignore me in good conscience, Shinobi-san."_

" _Maa, that wouldn't be very neighborly."_

" _It's never bothered you before."_

 _Kakashi winced. Inoichi had said something about her being a sensor for her strange chakra, but Kakashi had not thought she could sense his movements when he suppressed his chakra. Or that her opinion could sting so much. Kakashi had never spoken to her before. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not good with people, even when I know them, much less—I thought—I won't bother you again." Kakashi turned to unlock his door, shoulders slumped._

 _Luna sighed. She set her mug down and reached up to rub her forehead. "It really is just a bad day. I'll be fine, Neighbor-san."_

" _Kakashi." Luna turned his way as Kakashi hesitated with the keys in his hand. "My name. Hatake Kakashi. I guess you should know it."_

" _Lu—er, Lovegood Luna. Though, I'm sure you already know that…"_

* * *

"You know these people, Kakashi-san?" Sukea asked as he set his tea cup on the small table in front of him.

"Yep!" the other Kakashi said cheerfully. "I'm running a training exercise for my cute genin with help from some friends. It's nothing you need to concern yourself with." Kakashi gestured for the group to follow him and lead them back toward the Hatake compound. "My team's in place," he said once they were out of earshot. Now, I have every intention of making things difficult for them, but I do ask that if you spot them—"

"Don't you mean when?" Kakashi asked. "They're _genin_."

"Only because they had the luxury of graduating in peacetime, kid. Anyway, _if_ you spot them—" Kakashi growled at his older self— "I ask that you keep quiet about it. Give the others a chance to pick up on them, and me a better scope of their abilities after the fact."

The other Kakashi turned away and pulled a blue book out from the pocket of his jōnin vest. "Now, where would you like to go first?"

* * *

"Not the station, too," Obito gasped and he ran to the corner. He dodged a pedestrian that looked like that Sukea guy and turned right.

Obito had never paid that much attention to the police force his clan had run. He had had other life goals, but the thought of another building he associated with his clan being replaced hit hard. Fortunately, as Obito rounded the corner, he saw that while the shop building next to the police station had been replaced, the police station had not. The police had, and their insignia looked different, but the Uchiha fan remained in the center of the one on the building.

Unfortunately, as Obito rounded the corner, he also tripped and fell onto a civilian woman as she walked away from the shop.

The woman stumbled and dropped her bag as she caught herself. "I'm so sorry!" Obito exclaimed as he scrambled to help her collect the cans that had escaped the bag. "I didn't mean—"

"It's okay. No harm done," the woman said, her soft voice holding the same odd accent as the Prewet woman. She even had a stick like Prewett's jutsu-stick—which held her dirty blonde hair in a loose bun. With her hair pulled back, Obito easily caught sight of the orange radishes dangling from her earlobes. The woman frowned and tilted her head. "You _are_ all right?" she asked vaguely before her silvery eyes widened in surprise and recognition. "Neighbor-san." The woman nodded over Obito's shoulder.

Obito turned and saw Sukea behind him. As well as Obito's companions. With expressions that ranged from concerned to exasperated. The elder Kakashi looked particularly unhappy. "Luna, you can call me Sukea," the brunette photographer said.

Luna smiled, amusement in her eyes. "Of course, Neighbor-san." Luna stood with her now-full bag. "Have a good day, Neighbor-san. People I haven't met. Kakashi—" Luna's bearing suggested deception as she turned to the adult Bakakashi. "Could I talk to you a minute?"

"Oh-ho. Trouble in par—"

"When did you change your name to Kakashi, _Peeping Tom-_ san?" Luna asked Jiraiya mildly.

"Let's step over here," Kakashi suggested with a gesture back the way Obito and the others came. Soon the pair was out of sight around the corner.

Sukea sighed, then turned and wandered away with a wave of his hand.

* * *

The village had accomplished a fair amount of rebuilding in the past nine days. Rubble had been cleared out and building frames stood in their place. In the distance, you could see the repairs to the village's wall. Genin and Chūnin aided various repair crews. However, plenty still needed to be done.

It all emphasized to Minato that fourteen years had passed. Somehow, in the isolation of the compound, it had felt more like the adult Kakashi and Sakumo were the odd ones out. Logically, Minato had known otherwise, but the village drove the reality in. Minato scowled at the still to be repaired wall for the Yamanaka gardens. The bricks and mortar that remained were not the wall of his time. Minor things like that made a huge difference.

"It's a shame isn't it?" Sukea walked up next to him. "That lives can't be rebuilt as easily as buildings."

Minato nodded in agreement while keeping his face neutral. This was the third time since the café that the group had crossed paths with Sukea. Minato did not believe in coincidences. He just could not determine if the man was following them on the Hokage's orders or acting on his own curiosity/suspicions. "It is," Minato replied. "It's no good to dwell on it, though."

Sukea's gaze flickered over to a group of civilian apartments sitting under the shade of the Hokage Monument. "It's hard not to sometimes."

"Are you taking photos of the damage?" Obito asked.

Sukea shook his head. "Village damage is photo-restricted. Even your escort could not get permission to snap pictures on a whim."

 _That's right,_ Minato realized.

"Then why are you carrying a camera around?" the younger Kakashi demanded, the long brown hair he had disguised himself with falling around the corners of his eyes and covering the sides of his mask. For some reason, he had picked up a small piece of brick.

Sukea shrugged. "There's no rule against it, and I know when I see a shot I want, if I can take it or not. What about you? Are you surveying the repairs as part of your training?"

"In part," Obito replied only for the younger Kakashi to jab him with his elbow. "What?"

"It's none of his business, moron," Kakashi hissed.

"Listen, Baka—" His agemate elbowed Obito harder, as Minato loudly cleared his throat. Obito cut off before he could say saying anything that might raise questions.

Sukea just raised an eyebrow. "Argue a lot, huh?" he sounded amused.

* * *

Rin giggled. Kakashi glanced at the currently blue-haired girl. His older self stood behind her, his eye on them instead of the book in his hand. _Everyone_ was watching them. Kakashi turned away and scowled up at Sukea. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing." Sukea shrugged. "See you around." He waved as he turned away—

Just as a brown-haired jōnin jumped down into his path. The newcomer wore a headguard with the leaf symbol and the typical jōnin uniform of this time. And his face—Kakashi stiffened and squeezed his hand over the brick shard he held as he flashed to last night's dream. "The exercise is over," The man said over Kakashi's turmoil. "Everyone here except Kakashi needs to return to the Hatake compound immediately. Sempai, send your students with them. You're with me."

The mystery jōnin looked straight at Sukea as he talked. He made a few hand signs Kakashi could not fully see. Sukea sighed. "Well, you heard him," he said in a different, more familiar voice as he reached up and grasped his brown hair. "Fall in," he said as he pulled off a brown wig revealing familiar silver hair. "Sukea" reached up again and peeled a strip of purple off his left cheek. He turned around, revealing a deep scar under his left eye. Purple remained on the eyelid. "Go straight home, no detours," the newly revealed older Kakashi ordered, his manner sterner than Kakashi had seen yet. Then he and the brunette jōnin leapt up onto a nearby rooftop and disappeared.

"Well come along," the other older Kakashi—Kakashi _really_ hated those clones—said and turned toward the compound. The genin soon joined them. They all wore civilian clothes and carried wigs in their hand, though the whisker-less blonde wore girls' clothes.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?" Obito demanded.

"What do you mean?" Sasuke said blandly. "He told you that our whole team would trade off on tailing you, didn't he?"

"Do you not consider your sensei a teammate?" Sakura asked. "I feel bad for him if that's the case."

"Besides, Kakashi-sensei was testing our ability to remain undiscovered if one or more of the team was known," Naruto said. "And as such, was rather obvious."

"About following us," Minato-sensei said dryly. "He disguised his face, chakra, and manner rather well."

"Maa," the Kakashi clone said. "Going hard on them doesn't mean my original should make it _too_ easy on you."

" _Easy_?" Obito and Kakashi spluttered.

The clone of the older one shrugged. "You would have had all day. Besides," he turned to Kakashi. "Didn't you say spotting my genin would be easy."

Kakashi growled and pitched the brick shard at the clone's face. It didn't dodge and dispelled when hit. The book the clone held landed on the ground, along with the brick shard.

"Well," Jiraiya said after a second. "It's a good thing Kakashi keyed his genin into the wards. His chakra signature is a little more aged than yours."

Kakashi's father blinked at that. "His genin?"

Jiraiya nodded. "After two days of their leaving daily for training and repair shifts, he didn't want them to have to wait to get in."

"But not you?" the currently blonde man persisted as the group continued. "Who's also been leaving and is his godfather?"

 _My what?_ Kakashi's head whipped to his father.

"He's, uh… been a bit snitty with me for some reason." Jiraiya turned toward the Hatake compound.

" _Some reason_!?" Naruto snarled. "You tried to peep on his fiancé!" Naruto and his teammates glared at the sannin.

"WHAT!?" Kushina exclaimed as Jiraiya paled.

"It was just research and she wasn't even _in_ the baths!" Jiraiya protested.

Kushina slugged him across the jaw, her currently brown hair waving on its own in nine clumps. As Jiraiya fell to the ground, Kushina turned to the genin. "So," she said pleasantly—too pleasantly for Kakashi's comfort—"what's this about Kashi-kun having a fiancé?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Naruto deadpanned. "There's a woman he plans to marry."

Sakura bopped him on the head. "That's not what she meant." The pink-haired girl smiled up at Kushina. "I'm sure the news either got lost among everything else to catch you up on, or he wanted to wait until he could introduce her."

Kushina grinned wider and leaned toward the girl. "So, what's she like?"

"Horrible, merciless, joy-sucking wretch of a woman," Jiraiya moaned as he stood. "Pity she didn't stay in her homeland."

Kushina stiffened. "Excuse me?" she asked sharply.

"Kakashi's woman. She's heartless."

"Ignore him." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Luna just let him experience his 'research' from the other side."

"She peeped on Jiraiya?" Obito asked.

"Ew, no. She cast an illusion, so he'd _feel_ peeped upon."

"Hardly," Jiraiya said. "That was a phantom of a sick, creepy old hag that was planning… _something_. I couldn't shower for a week until I went into sage mode and broke her weird chakra. And I still can't research without remembering that hag's eyes." Jiraiya shuddered. "Truly an evil woman."

Kushina laughed. "Sounds like justice to me."

* * *

"What I don't get," Sakumo said after they were back at the house, "Is why cover up a perfectly fine-looking eye? That just advertises his blind spot."

Kakashi's genin looked at each other a moment. "It's a contact," Naruto said from where he wiped makeup off his face. "It makes his eye look normal, but it's impractical for the field."

"Why not?" Obito asked.

"Contacts require special care," Rin said as Sasuke mumbled, "It interferes with the Sharingan".

 _The what?_

All the time travelers stopped at Sasuke's words. Obito grew quiet and stared at the ground while Kakashi's eyebrows furrowed in thought. Minato-sensei and Kushina traded stunned looks while Sakumo cleared his throat. "Neither my wife nor I had any Uchiha ancestry?"

Jiraiya sighed. "Do you remember when Kakashi said Obito's death wasn't a simple matter? Well, apparently his dying request was that Rin replace Kakashi's lost eye with Obito's. It got stuck as an activated Sharingan, which caused all sorts of problems, particularly with the Uchiha—"

"Why?" Obito asked. "Clan history is full of eye bequeathals."

"Among _other U-chi-ha_ ," Sasuke drawled.

"Well yeah," Obito replied. "There weren't many non-blood allies during the warring states period."

"The key word to the rest of your clan was blood, not ally," Jiraiya said dryly. "Anyway, they had this genjutsu where they could view the eye's memory or some such thing, and once they determined the eye was not stolen, they allowed him to keep it."

"Of course," Obito nodded. "They wouldn't dream of dishonoring a dying wish."

"No," Sasuke replied. "They just amended clan law so that anyone else who gives an eye out of clan without prior approval is dishonoring themselves and their dead."

Obito whistled. "They were _really_ unhappy about it."

"You can't say they didn't have reason," Jiraiya said. "Once word got around of a non-  
Uchiha with a Sharingan, there were enemy shinobi targeting Uchiha to replace their own lost eyes. The Hyūga, too."

"Oh," Obito replied, eyes wide. He stared down at the ground and clenched his fists. "So, my gift hurt the village…"

"That's a matter of debate, kid," Jiraiya said. "With the rise in eye transplants, someone would have gotten the idea sooner or later. And Kakashi did adapt his fighting style to the Sharingan well. He'd have been phenomenal either way, but the name he made based on its presence helped the village maintain an air of strength. That reputation was critical for us avoiding another war after the Kyūbi and the massacre."

Obito frowned and looked to the side.

* * *

Kushina hummed lightly as she cut vegetables raided from the elder Kakashi's storage scrolls. As she bustled about the kitchen, Minato sat at the nearby table and wrote notes in a scroll, likely another seal brainstorm.

Through the door, she could see Kakashi's genin in the middle of the main room. They knelt around a traditional table, engrossed in some card game. Behind them to the left, Obito sat cross-legged on the floor, his sketchpad in his lap. He bit his lip in concentration as he leaned over it, pencil in hand. Further left, out of Kushina's sight, Rin and the younger Kakashi sat reading. Kakashi had grabbed one of the books that his elder self had provided, while Rin had pulled a medical scroll out before Kushina had entered the kitchen. Behind the right side of the kitchen wall, Jiraiya and Sakumo played a game of shogi.

Kushina turned to the sink and filled a pot and a bowl with cold water. As she placed the pot on the stove, Rin's giggles pierced the quiet atmosphere of the group. "Are you hiding a book in your scroll?" Kakashi asked.

"I'm taking a break!"

"With _more_ reading?" Obito asked. "Wait, isn't that the one Old Bakakashi's clone dropped?"

"Since shadow clones transfer memory, I wondered what he'd have a clone read for him."

Kushina glanced up at the door just in time to see Obito move out of sight. " _Uric the Odd, The Three Brothers, and Other Tales of England,_ as translated and reimagined by Tsukino Rokushin," he said. "What the hell's England?"

"It's a place that doesn't exist, kid," Jiraiya said. "That hack's gimmick is 'retelling' events and fictions of a made-up world. Now if you kids want to read a great story—"

"They don't need your crappy porn!" Naruto said.

"The _Icha-Icha_ series is a masterpiece, and not what I was talking about." Jiraiya said as he stepped in front of Naruto, a book in his hand. "This is more along the lines of what you're all mature enough to appreciate."

" _The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi_ ," Naruto said, "by Jiraiya the Gallant." Kushina snorted. "Published in 1312. Really?" Naruto asked skeptically. "If it's any good, why haven't I heard of it before?"

"You've heard of it every single time you hear your name, Brat! You were named after the main character."

"Right… And in nearly thirteen years, no one ever mentioned the book to me. Can't be that known a reference."

"Sales don't always reflect quality. I can you assure this is a better read than a writer who has to invent a world for their stories to work."

"Actually, these stories don't seem any less realistic than common folklore," Rin said.

"I'm pretty sure most of them _are_ common folklore in Luna's world," Sasuke said as he shuffled the cards. He glanced up Jiraiya. "You do remember that she is one of four people in Konoha _literally from another world_."

"And that you mocked her name for roughly meaning 'Goodheart of Moon'," Naruto added. "Well you used 'Moon of Goodheart' since her names and their translations were officially recorded under our naming order, while her people put first—er, family names—last. But that's close enough to her pseudonym's meaning that—"

"Kakashi's woman wrote this?" Jiraiya interrupted Naruto's rambling as Minato set his brush down and rolled up his scroll.

"Duh."

"How exactly _did_ we come to have residents from another world?" Minato called into the other room. "That's rather unexpected."

 _About as much as our situation,_ Kushina thought.

"A device seized in a suspected illegal time-travel case exploded, dropping them in the middle of a jōnin meeting," Jiraiya replied. "After verifying that they had no way back and that no one would follow, Sensei granted them civilian residency in Konoha."

"They were police, then?" Obito asked, interest clear in his voice.

"More like their R&D department for the redhead who examined you," Jiraiya replied. "For one of the men too. I think there was a clerk there to pick up a report, and the Moon-woman was a civilian expert on their rare animals that was called in to evaluate a venom-spitting rabbit—Apparently, that's not anymore a thing in their world than ours."

The water in front of Kushina started boiling, and she eased a spider strainer full of vegetables into the water. _At least she had company,_ Kushina thought. When she had first came to Konoha, it felt almost like another world. She would have loved another migrant to commiserate with. Mito helped before her death, but having left Uzushio decades before Kushina, Mito had adopted many aspects of Fire Country's culture.

On the other hand, the similarities between any two Elemental Nations outweighed the differences. Kushina suspected this was not the case for Luna and the others.

"Rin-chan," Kushina called as she lifted the vegetables out of the boiling water and dipped them in the bowl of cold water. "Could you read me one of the stories? I'm curious as to what the lore of another world would be like." She placed the blanched vegetables in an empty bowl and loaded the next group of vegetables in the strainer. _If tales of another world sell,_ she wondered as she lowered the strainer into the boiling pot, _would the tales of Uzushio?_

" _The Three Brothers_ ," Rin said. "Bored, Death went for a walk in the mortal plane. He came across a raging, storm-swelled river. On the other bank, he spied three brothers. The bothers drew wands, a common method of focusing jutsu in the area, and weaved their rare techniques together. As each cast jutsu after jutsu, a sturdy bridge came into existence. They walked over the river and continued their journey. As they approached Death, Death heard the brothers' self-compliments on their cleverness.

"Death decided to stir things up. He made himself visible. 'Congratulations,' he said. 'I intended to claim you three when you drowned, but you have outsmarted me. As a reward, I will grant each of you a single wish.'

"The first brother, who had an upcoming duel in a neighboring town, wanted an unbeatable wand. Death went to a nearby elder tree and carved a branch into a wand. He handed it to the brother. 'As long as you channel your jutsu through this, you will be unbeatable—but only in battle.'

"The second brother, who had lost his intended bride to illness, demanded a method to recall the dead. Death bent down and picked up a round stone, worn smooth by the water from the riverbank. He imbued it with his power and presented it to the brother. 'Think of one you wish, while turning this stone. But be warned: death changes one indelibly.'

"The third brother, the wisest and most humble of the three, tried to refuse his wish, but Death insisted. Finally, the brother asked if he could have a method of hiding from anyone—even Death. Death thought on it and decided to give the brother the invisibility cloak off his back. 'No eyes shall see you when you're fully covered.'

"Death departed.

"The brothers continued on their way and soon split to their separate paths. The first brother went to his anticipated duel and slew his opponent. He left the body in the street and went to the nearest bar to celebrate. He soon became drunk and boasted about his unbeatable wand. Tha—"

"Oh, that never ends well," Jiraiya said.

"Quiet!" Kushina snapped before Rin went back to reading.

"That night, as the brother lay passed out in his room, a dark figure crept in, slit his throat, and stole the wand.

"Thus, Death claimed the first brother, and Death's stick began its bloody journey.

"The second brother returned to his house and recalled his fiancé to the mortal plane. But she appeared to be separated by a veil, her cold skin leached heat out of him at the slightest touch, and, not being alive, she suffered by being in the living plane. The woman repeatedly begged the brother to let her return to the realm of the dead. The brother could not bear the thought of losing her again. Finally, he returned to the riverbank, dropped the stone on the ground, and as his love faded from the mortal world, drowned himself.

"Thus, Death claimed the second brother, and Death's stone lay in wait for the next person to pick it up.

"The third brother lived a modest life, never taking the cloak off until the day he reached a very old age. Feeling Death's presence, he gave the cloak to his eldest son and welcomed Death as if greeting an old friend. As two departed from the mortal plane, the brother asked: 'If my family could hear me, then so could you. Why did you not come before now?'

"'I do not come without reason,' Death replied. 'One cannot prevent when I get a reason, but one can give me reason.'

"And Death's cloak? It belongs to the brother's descendants to this day."

Silence filled the room for a minute. "You found that funny?" Obito sounded bewildered.

"That's just the first story. I was on a tale about this guy, Barnabus, who was trying to teach oni how to tell stories through a type of dance comically unsuited to them. Or just comical, since she describes shoes holding women on the tips of their toes—"

"If you want to share it, read it," Kakashi snapped. "Don't give it away." Kushina dipped the last of the vegetables in the cold water. "What? Kushina might want to enjoy the story."

"Right. _Kushina_ doesn't want the story spoiled," Naruto drawled. "Just read it yourself, already."

"It's just a story," Kakashi responded.

"So's _Mermaid Cove_ , and I saw Kakashi-sensei cover his ears to avoid spoilers for the movie when he'd already read the book," Sakura said dryly. "Granted there _were_ changes for time and pacing, but nothing majo—"

"DON'T!"

Obito burst out laughing after Kakashi's outburst. "All ready read the book? He's carried that thing around so long he must have it memorized."

* * *

Night had fallen by the time the older Kakashi returned to the Hatake compound. He held his left eye closed. The jōnin from before accompanied him into the house. "Yamato-sensei!" Sakura cried happily.

"Hey, brat, what's this I hear about a fiancé?" Kushina demanded.

Kakashi chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head. "About that…"

"Sensei!" Naruto exclaimed. "You better not have messed things up with Luna-chan!"

"No. Nothing like that. It's just… Well, the morning after the invasion, we got to talking, and with the real possibility of war come October… or at least the need for a strong mission presence… we might have gone ahead and updated our registration forms."

"WHAT!?" Obito yelled as Kushina shrieked, "YOU'RE _MARRIED_!?".

"THAT WAS EIGHT DAYS AGO!" Naruto yelled as Sakura lectured, "SENSEI, YOU _TELL PEOPLE_ CRAP LIKE THAT!" Rin erupted into giggles at the chaos.

And the expression on the younger Kakashi's face. Then she saw the hurt on Sakumo's face. _Oh. Traditionally, he should have asked Sakumo-san for permission first…_

The older Kakashi stood quietly until the commotion died down. "There wasn't a good time to bring it up. This really isn't the time for good news either, but you asked."

"What happened?" Minato-sensei asked soberly.

Kakashi sighed and looked over at the corner of the room where Rin and her teammates were seated. "Rin," he said softly as he walked over. She felt her smile melt as an uneasy feeling settled into her gut. She looked up at Kakashi quizzically as he sat before her. "Your sister and her husband, Weasley Percy, were found murdered earlier today after they missed the meeting where the Hokage planned to brief them on your return."

Rin's stomach dropped. "Who killed them?" she demanded as Obito grabbed her hand. She stared at Kakashi as she ignored the roomful of ears on their discussion.

"It's unknown at this time. A Sound hitai-ate was found at the scene, but the kills were too sloppy for a ninja able to avoid apprehension for nine days. They'll get 'em," Kakashi assured her. "The team they have on the case is good."

Rin nodded as she stared at the floor. She had had a falling out with her little sister the year before she arrived in this time, so she had not thought of reconnecting with her. Dying as a shinobi would have only increased Keiko's antipathy for Rin's career. But now there was no chance…

"There's more," Kakashi said. "You have a two-year-old nephew, named Rin, that survived." Rin's throat suddenly got tight and she blinked back tears. For Keiko to have chosen her name, she had to have forgiven her. "He's under observation at the hospital, but you can see him after he's released. The Hokage has already briefed his new guardian."

"New guardian?" Rin asked. She was not ready to assume care of a toddler, but she and Keiko had no other family. And from the name, Keiko's husband was not native to the Land of Fire.

"Prewett Mafalda. She examined you after you arrived in our time. Weasley was a cousin of hers, I believe."

 _From the same world as Kakashi's wife. Did he know them socially, then?_ Rin wondered. She opened her mouth to ask, but hesitated. She wanted to know more about her sister, but a version of her least social teammate as a source felt strange.

Especially since her crush on said teammate did not seem to care about age.

 _Never mind that he couldn't be less interested than my Kakashi. Clearly not more, but still…_

"We have a meeting tomorrow morning," Kakashi said. "The Hokage is announcing your presence and the reason to the jōnin and clan heads. Sometime after that, he'll give a more general announcement to the populace." Kakashi removed a scroll from his jacket pocket. "I have paperwork for you to get new IDs and registration forms. Most of you will just fill out the forms used when inactive shinobi return to the field, with temporal resurrection as the reason for your return. However, Little Me—" Rin's Kakashi scowled at the address— "You can't request our ID number be reactivated as I'm using it. You'll be added to the ranks as a new shinobi with our shared history inserted into your file.

"Lord Third also requested that you select a new name, so you're not seen as just another me."

"He _is_ another you," Obito said.

"I was him, but his life has taken a different direction than mine did. He won't entirely become me." The older Kakashi turned back to his counterpart. "Kid, I know it's not fair, but it's also not fair for you to be treated as though you've done everything I have." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "There are a couple other things you need to know before you rejoin Konoha. I know Rin and Obito didn't want to discuss their alternates' deaths, but, well… There are related facts you need to know."

"We know about Obito's Sharingan," Minato-sensei said gently. "Jiraiya told us."

"It came up in relation to your disguise," Jiraiya said. "I can tell them about the girl too."

The adult Kakashi shook his head. "Rin deserves to hear it from me. I just…" He closed his eye and rubbed his neck.

"Does she?" Yamato asked. "It could be harder to hear from you."

Kakashi frowned and turned to Yamato.

"What's such a big deal about my death?" Rin asked as she frowned. A few days earlier, Jiraiya had mentioned that loosing two students to the war had been rough for Minato-sensei. So… "People die in war all the time."

"Not like this." Jiraiya said. "Half of Konoha thought Kakashi murdered you, when he tried desperately to keep you alive." Kakashi stared down at his right arm while Rin's Kakashi gasped and sat up straighter.

"Why?" Rin demanded.

"It was… my attack."

The adult Kakashi's words hit like a punch to Rin's gut. Various exclamations of shock and denial erupted as Jiraiya spoke. "That she _jumped in front of_. If you're going to tell them, tell them everything."

 _How could I have dodged so poorly?_ Rin wondered.

"That must have been some battle," Minato-sensei said. "Rin's situational awareness is exceptional."

"It was intentional," Jiraiya said. "Sh—"

"SHE'D NEVER!" Rin's Kakashi leaped up and glared at Jiraiya. His fists shook by his side. Obito paled and wrapped his arms around his knees.

"She would if it were the only way she could see to save others," the adult Kakashi said quietly as he stared at the floor. "The sanbi had to be contained. I'd been so sure that we could lose the Mist nin long enough to call Sensei, but we ran out of time. She—she had to." He glanced up towards Rin. Rin gasped at the tormented look on his face.

The adult Kakashi paled. "I'm sorry. I… Excuse me," he muttered before he rushed out of the house. His father and students moved to follow, but Jiraiya stopped him. A second later, Rin heard the familiar sound of vomiting.

* * *

Tenzo was right. Rin deserved time to process what happened without Kakashi's presence. What had he expected? Blame? Forgiveness? Both? Whatever Rin felt, she deserved space to react honestly without fear of hurting his feelings.

Or fear of him.

"Let him be," Jiraiya's voice drifted out of the house as Kakashi leaned off the porch and spilled what little he had in his stomach onto the ground.

"But—"

"He needs space," Jiraiya cut off Naruto's protest. "He'll be fine."

"He looked… I never saw so much pain," Rin said.

"It was a painful event. But he's had time to heal. Y—"

" _That's_ healed?" Kakashi's father sounded incredulous.

"He's accepted it's not his fault and—"

"Of course it is," the teen Kakashi spat, "If Rin had to step into his attack to stop the sanbi, then he was not guarding himself sufficiently."

"Kakashi, fighting a jinchūriki isn't—"

"You misunderstood," Jiraiya cut Minato-sensei off. "Rin _was_ the jinchūriki."

"What? The sanbi belonged to Kiri."

"It still does. Minato, it—They attacked a field hospital and captured her. They used a seal designed to release the sanbi after a set amount of time. Kakashi managed to free her before they could apply the control seal that would have forced her run to Konoha to release it, but he and Rin could not lose their pursuit. When they got close enough to the front, Mist triggered to the seal to fail early. Or perhaps it was just shoddy. All Inoichi could tell at the autopsy was that she felt the sanbi start to emerge and acted while her death could still disperse it."

"Autopsy?" Rin asked as Kakashi closed his eye and leaned back against the wall of the house.

"It was technically a Leaf-nin killing another and had to be investigated as such. Don't look like that, girl. He was _alive_ to face the investigation. He would not have survived the sanbi's emergence, even if it somehow didn't rampage through our front."

"It doesn't make sense," Kushina said. "Sure, the sanbi could have wreaked havoc on the village, but we would have eventually sealed it and taken possession."

"We never figured out the logic behind the plan," Jiraiya said. "But we feared they had a follow up invasion planned, and given our strength at the time… the Kannabi mission kept us from losing to Iwa, but we were still weakened. We could not afford the continued fighting with Kiri that the village would have demanded if the details of Rin's death were made public at the time."

"And so people were left to come to their own conclusions about Kakashi," Kakashi's father said.

"It didn't help that Kiri dubbed him 'friend killer'," Tenzo said. "Or that he killed more Mist-nin than he remembered before he collapsed—and insisted someone else killed the extra."

"No!" Footsteps pounded toward the door.

"Obito!" Minato-sensei called sharply. The door slid open again and Kakashi turned to meet the accusations.

" _HOW DID I DIE!?"_


	4. Chapter 4

" _HOW DID I DIE!?"_

Kakashi had expected recriminations for Rin's death, not this demand. He felt his surprise mirrored by those still inside. Kakashi sat up straighter as he studied the youth five feet away. Obito's frame shook with a tension that Kakashi had never seen on his old teammate before. "I thought Jiraiya told—"

"That I was alive long enough to bequeath my Sharingan! Not _how_. Was I stabbed? Burned?" Obito gave a strangled cry and fell to his knees in front of the door. "Please, tell me I was not crushed beneath a boulder," he begged to Kakashi's shock. As Kakashi's eye widened, Obito closed his eyes and moaned. "How did it happen? Cave-in? Please, not a cave-in."

"Obito… How?" Kakashi asked.

"I dreamt it!" Tears formed in Obito's eyes as his breathing picked up. "That first night we were here. Just as Kakashi dreamed of accidentally killing Rin." Kakashi caught his breath as Obito wrapped his arms around his chest. "They were just stupid dreams, brought on by the stress of coming here. And so were all the other ones, even last night. But then you really did kill Rin, and everything sounds so close—if that's true, it must all be true, but then I'm—I _can't_ be! I'd never—" Obito burst out sobbing. Not the light tears Kakashi remembered Obito shedding frequently, but heavy sobs that shook Obito's entire body.

"Obito…" Kakashi murmured. "I can't imagine what it's like to remember your death while still alive, but _you_ have a long life—"

"I didn't _stay_ dead, damn it!" Obito snapped as he gasped for air. "I woke up with some plant guy over me telling Uchiha fucking _Madara_ that he could not guarantee restarting my heart again. And then—I—I—" Obito started to hyperventilate. Kakashi stood and walked over to Obito as Minato stepped out of the house.

"Obito," Minato said as he reached down to touch Obito's shoulder.

Obito flinched away violently.

"Obito," Kakashi said as he knelt by his former teammate's side. "Look at me," he ordered as he opened the eye with Obito's Sharingan. "Please." Trembling, Obito complied. Kakashi quickly caught him in a genjutsu. Obito collapsed onto the engawa.

Minato looked alarmed as both he and Kakashi reached for Obito. "It's just a mild sleep genjutsu," Kakashi assured him as he took in the faces crowded close to the door. "I think we need Inoichi to look at him," Kakashi said as Minato picked up Obito, clear disapproval on his face. "It won't be easy for Obito if he's that panicked by whatever he's… remembering."

"You believe his dreams are real?" Jiraiya asked skeptically.

"I believe we should find out."

"I've already redirected my clone to the Hokage," Tenzo said.

Kakashi frowned. "Clone?"

Tenzo shrugged. "I need groceries. I'll pass along the request for Yamanaka."

* * *

" _You okay?" Kakashi asked as he turned a page in his new_ Icha Icha _volume. His attention, however, was on Luna, not the words in front of him. Somehow over the last few months, Kakashi spent more and more of his downtime sitting in Luna's free chair and reading along side her. Usually, she read at a fast pace. Today she had stared at the same page for five minutes._

 _Luna grimaced and shut the book. "I'm just distracted today."_

" _Anything you want to talk about?"_

" _Not really, but…" Luna fiddled with her sleeve. "A few years back, there was a civil war in my home. It's the anniversary of the final battle. We won, but… I've always felt more mournful than celebratory on this date. Too many cut down next to me."_

 _From his experience in the Third War, Kakashi could appreciate her sentiments. "I didn't know you were a warrior."_

 _A wry expression crossed Luna's face. "According to my world, I wasn't old enough to fight. It didn't keep the war from coming for me. There's this curse, a forbidden spell, that allows the castor to control the actions of a lessor-willed victim. Magical power also factors in—Anyway, if one is close to the edge of fighting the curse off, you can see it in their eyes. Otherwise, there's no way to tell who is under it. In my sixth year of school, our_ minister, _the leader of our government, was assassinated. Whispers soon circulated that his replacement was under the curse. Many brushed the rumors off, as the man had fought off the curse in the previous war, but suddenly the government adopted policies of the opposition, brought members of them into key positions. They had to have had members inside or cursed other officials to pull the it off, but they seized control. And ordered new staff appointed to our school. Given how spread out magical ability is… School for us starts around age eleven and involves living in a converted castle ten months out of the year, returning to our families on breaks."_

" _You were hostages," Kakashi realized._

" _And a captive audience to indoctrinate to their point of view. Or attempt to. And when my father became inconvenient… I managed to disappear on a trip home I never took. I got lucky, rescued by some friends that never returned to school. But I'll never forget… And when word spread that we were going to free the school, nothing would have kept me away. Nor, as it turns out, anyone on either side. A rescue operation snowballed into the biggest, and most decisive battle of the war… Most of the youngest, least able to defend themselves, we were able to barricade in the dorms. But we still lost some…"_

* * *

"…Want to believe it," Obito said as he laid on the floor in the center of the room. Inoichi sat to his left, a hand on Obito's face as he kept Obito in a trance. Minato sat on Obito's right and held his student's hand. Rin and the younger Kakashi sat on Minato's sides. Kushina sat behind him, her hand on Minato's shoulder in silent support. A few feet to the left, sat the Hokage. He held a lit pipe as he frowned and listened to Obito's words. "Kakashi wouldn't kill Rin. But they're right there in front of me," Obito continued in the monotone voice he had used since the start of the trance. "My eye burns, and I can feel my Sharingan shift into something different as it pulls much more chakra than usual. When the drain stops, and my vision clears, I see Rin and Kakashi on the ground. A Kiri-nin goes for the kill. The world ripples and I'm there. With no weapon, I cut her down with chidori."

Minato glanced at the adult Kakashi where he stood against the wall behind Inoichi. Said Kakashi looked down at Obito. Minato found he could not guess the thoughts behind the man's grim face. But he had not contradicted anything Obito had reported about Rin and Obito's deaths.

 _However presumed,_ Minato thought.

Kakashi's students had gravitated to his sides. As had Yamato and one of the Hokage's ANBU guards. However, the students telegraphed the need to support their sensei. And each other. Obito's tale so far had been brutal: buried alive, awakening during surgery— _staying conscious_ through the rest of his surgery and limb transplants. (A paralysis tag had prevented speech, voluntary movement, and, fortunately, pain reception. Still, Obito's description of feeling pressure while the Zetsu worked on him would give Minato nightmares.) Obito then detailed captive rehabilitation and finding one teammate with his arm through the chest of the other one, while literally wearing one of his captors.

"Guruguru says something to me," Obito continues, "but I don't pay any attention as I catch a Mist-nin in a genjutsu. Only he's already in a genjutsu. I can't see much in the feedback, but I succeed in getting him to tell me what happened with Rin and the sanbi. I realize they forced Rin or Rin and Kakashi both to decide her death over Konoha's destruction. I get furious. I cut the remaining troops down, but what I really want is to cut down the world. Tear down the world that would that would do this to them, so that no one would ever suffer their pain again. I know I won't. That it would just be me inflicting similar pain on others, but for one horrible instant, I understand Madara's rants about the world's rot.

"I go cold at the realization. I wonder just _how_ Madara was so certain I'd come to understand him. _Why_ he was so certain I'd return, when before he'd been obsessed with keeping me caged. Some Zetsu had told Madara that Rin and Kakashi were in trouble. Could some Zetsu be behind the other genjutsu and have set Rin up in the first place? Could I have been meant to see her forced to wreak havoc on the village?" Across the room, Kakashi pales.

"I'm holding Rin. I barely noticed when I went to her, but I'm here, crying out my apologies for not getting here sooner. I want to apologize for mouthing off about our friendship and my love for the village, but I daren't reveal those thoughts.

"Kakashi lays beside us, unmoving. His breathing's steady, and his chakra feels low. Before I can verify that that's all that's wrong with him, Guruguru squeezes down on my whole body as he hisses my name.

"'What?', I snap. Guruguru tells me that Konoha forces are coming. That we need to leave. That if I want to undo Kakashi's act, I need to go help Madara's plan. I hug Rin tighter while watching Kakashi. I told him once, that those who abandon their friends are worse than trash. And Kakashi will need a friend more than ever when he wakes. But if I'm right about what just happened, Madara and the Zetsu are a threat the village knows nothing about—that I can't locate, adequately count, or even predict. How much worse would I be if Kakashi or someone else got hurt by Madara because I came home before getting the full picture? Kakashi has other friends; Konoha just has me with Madara.

"I verify the forces coming are Leaf—and boy is it weird to realize that any Zetsu can see out of the others' eyes. For any Zetsu that may be reporting to Madara, I spout a bullshit promise to Rin's body about building a perfect world for her sake. I lay Rin down and step back into the bushes. I intend to watch until they're retrieved, but Guruguru drags me underground." Minato closes his eyes. Obito had had a good reason for his choice, but clearly his plan went wrong.

"Madara is all sympathetic when I return to the cave. Says that he is sorry I had to face such harsh realities. That if it helps, Kakashi likely spared her a more painful end. I wonder why everyone's convinced I'll blame Kakashi for Kiri's actions. Anyway, I ask Madara to tell me just how he intends to create a better world. He asks me what I know about bijū.

"I remember a couple of folktales about tailed beasts, and everything the Mist-nin told me about the sanbi. Madara smiles at that. Says it is to be expected in this day and age, when the bijū are a weapon to hoard in secret and not a force of nature. He talks about his fight with Lord First at the Valley of the End. How he had managed to control the kyūbi with his Sharingan only for Lady Mito to use her Uzumaki knowledge to seal the beast inside of herself. That it led to a misguided attempt by the First to establish peace by capturing and gifting other bijū to other villages as mutual deterrents. And then he starts talking about the sage of the six paths.

"Apparently, Madara discovered that the Senju and Uchiha clans were descended from the Sage of the Six Path's two sons. That the clans' feud started as a spat between brothers. But that if you brought Senju and Uchiha genes back into balance, you could revive the Rinnegan. Madara claims to have had success, but that he gave the eyes away to a potential pawn in Ame." To the right, Jiraiya gasps. Minato sees his sensei frozen as he stares at Obito. "Madara pats the statue that's been keeping him alive. 'Do you know what this is, Obito? It's the shell that was left when the Sage split the jūbi into the nine bijū we know today. With the Rinnegan it can reabsorb the bijū to revive the jūbi. We just need a decent vessel for it. See, not everyone can withstand the corrosive nature of bijū chakra enough to survive as a jinchūriki. The number of candidates drops as the bijū's strength rises. That's why Konoha had to negotiate with Uzu to acquire Uzumaki Kushina when Lady Mito neared her end. But for the jūbi… Well, there is a reason we used the material we did when remaking you.'

"I cannot stop my jaw from dropping. I ask if I'm supposed to bully the villages into peace under threat of annihilation. Madara applauds my creativity but assures me that he has found a better solution: with the jūbi's power, I'll be able to use the moon to cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi, an unbreakable genjutsu that will give everyone their perfect world and resurrect their dead.

"I cannot think of anything more horrific than being trapped in a genjutsu tortured by the knowledge that those around me are not real. I bow down and swear to help him. I ask what he needs me to do. The sooner I learn where this damn cave is, the sooner I can get home.

"The sooner I can stop this madness.

"Madara's hand lands on my head and he assures me that it's all right that I don't believe. That my grief has made him able to change that. Before I can move away, a sharp pain stabs my chest. A glowing seal emerges from within my skin. I can't move. There are seals everywhere around me. Madara's hands grab the sides of my head and force me to look into his hollow eye sockets. There's a growing pressure against my thoughts. I—" Obito jerked under Inoichi's grip. "No!" he gasped, his voice having lost its deadpan quality. "I'm not you! I won't—"

"Obito! Listen to me. Leave the memory. Follow my voice."

Obito continued to thrash under Inoichi's hands. Inoichi released his grip on Obito as Obito rolled to the side and into a trembling ball.

* * *

He was Obito, not Madara. Madara's memories might feel like experiences Obito had had, but they were not his. Obito just had to hang onto that thought as Madara's life surrounded Obito. He might now know and understand the bastard better then he ever wanted, but Obito still knew himself. He would not succumb to Madara's madne—

A sharp pain flashed through Obito's head and disrupted his thoughts. A memory of meeting Hashirama bubbled up into view. Obito shook it off. He had to ignore these foreign memories. He would not go with the insanity of Madara's plan—

Another pain lanced through Obito's brain. Black Zetsu's Moon Eye plan was brilliant. It would save the world—Obito shook himself out of that memory. The revelation that The Moon's Eye Plan did not originate from Madara was a surprise, but not something Obito could dwell on. Later, when it was time to stop—

Obito woke as another sharp pain flashed through his head.

"What the hell was that?" he asked himself as he sat up and rubbed his head, a trace of headache remaining. It was not unusual for Obito to have dreams or thoughts questioning The Plan. Despite everything Madara had done for him, traces of Obito's childhood delusions remained. But this—this was like those traces had joined up with a full measure of Obito's childhood naiveté.

Obito sighed and ran a hand through his long, dark hair. It was probably nothing, though he doubted he would get anymore sleep. He might as well get up and work. With Akatsuki ready to move, there was always more to be done.

And maybe Obito should confer with Black Zetsu to make sure Madara's cure still held firm…

* * *

"What happened?" Hiruzen asked as Inoichi pulled a pad and pen out of his vest. Obito continued to shake as Rin fretted over him and Minato rubbed the chūnin's back and murmured words of comfort. Inoichi started drawing on a page in his pad.

"From what I caught, Madara dumped his memories into the other Obito's head. He simultaneously slaved the kid's thought processes to an obsession with completing Madara's plan. The memory of that invasion caused him to instinctively fight against my jutsu. I broke it off to avoid injuring him." Inoichi flipped the to the next page. "I can tell you the two Obitoes have a subconscious link that allows one to tap into the other's memories. I didn't probe it too closely for fear of making the other aware of it—assuming he isn't—so I don't know if it can be expanded or blocked."

"Then examine young Kakashi," Hiruzen ordered as Inoichi's pen flew over yet another page. "He does not have the skills to protect the classified knowledge of his older self." Not to mention the memory he described about Tenzo could have easily been one much more problematic than revelations of ANBU and Mokuton. "I also want to know if there is anything he's picked up that he's not aware of. And what." Hiruzen made a small gesture with his left hand as Inoichi glanced his way. Inoichi nodded as he ripped the pages he had filled off the pad.

"I only caught a glimpse of the seals Obito saw," Inoichi said as he handed the pages to Hiruzen. "But maybe our resurrected seal masters can tell something useful from them."

"Oi! I'm just as good as Minato and Kushina!" Jiraiya protested as Hiruzen glanced at the symbols. His seal knowledge was fair, and they seemed to be another detail to confirm Obito's story. Hiruzen handed the pages over to Kushina. Young Kakashi looked at the drawings over her shoulder.

"These are bits and pieces that could make a slavery-seal. I can't tell you more than that, though it must tie into the seal on the chest," Kushina reported.

" _In_ it," Inoichi corrected. "From the depth of the pain Obito felt, I think they applied it to his heart during the surgery."

"That would make it difficult to unrav—"

"NO, SENSEI, IT'S _NOT_ ALRIGHT!" Obito leapt up and stomped away from Minato.

"Obito…"

Obito spun back to face Minato, fists tightly clenched. "Don't you get it?" he asked, voice small and head shaking as tears formed in his eyes. "The moon plan and the fact someone went after the kyūbi are not a coincidence. I don't know if I lost control, or if the kyūbi was targeted at Konoha like Kakashi said… But I _killed_ you, Sensei. And Kushina-nee. And so many others that I had sworn to stand with. To _protect_."

Obito choked into tears as Inoichi stared down at the floor, hands balling into fists. "It'll _never_ be alright," Obito said.

Minato said, " _You_ didn't do—"

"I _WOULD_ HAVE!" Obito roared. "If I'd been the me to stay, and he were here—Do you really think I would have done anything different?"

"He's being controlled—"

"BECAUSE I HAD DELUSIONS OF ESPIANGE SKILLS!" Obito shook his head and wrapped his arms around his chest. "He was the damned rival to the first Hokage. He could see through deceptions of those more skilled than I as easily as breathing. And instead of coming to warn the village, I walked back in there." Obito scoffed. "I might as well have willing joined up."

"What makes you think this Guruguru would have let you return?" the adult Kakashi asked. "He whisked you back there without your say. How could you have fought off an enemy that was wrapped around you as a suit?"

"I could have asked him to leave me. He liked me."

"Enough to go against Madara? Do you really believe that?"

"I could have tried. If it had worked, you'd know—"

"That a dead man still survived but was old and infirm," the adult Kakashi said gently. "The Zetsu, with their ability to shapeshift and move undetected, would have been a source of worry. But not a priority. Not with the war going on."

"I wouldn't haveattacked the village."

"You were not the only Uchiha lost in the war," Hiruzen said. "Another could easily have gone missing. And even if Zetsu did not grab another one… the Sharingan is not the only bloodline limit able to control bijū. The Mokuton is another one. The kyūbi attack still could have happened, if not that night, some other time. It may have been better, but it could have been worse."

Even as he spoke, Hiruzen knew that he, himself, would dwell on the possibility that a different attack would have spared his wife. It was human nature to wish that the boy would have— _could_ have—chosen differently, to better results.

"That doesn't change the fact that it was me. How can I face the village? What could I possibly say to the families?"

"Don't," Inoichi said as he looked up at Obito, his clenched fists shaking. "Don't you _dar_ —" Inoichi took a deep breath. "Look kid, it's not your fault. Not everyone will understand that. Some might bitch about a lack of apology, but they don't truly want one. It won't ease their pain. Or yours. And—"

"And no one is to know," Hiruzen said. "Everything you've said here tonight is now a triple es-class secret. I will not allow your misplaced guilt to threaten the advantage we may have gained against an enemy we have tried to unmask for years." Hiruzen glared into Obito's eyes. "Understood?"

Obito swallowed and nodded. Inoichi sighed. "If you want to do something about it, kid, help us stop the threat of Madara's plans. I can't guarantee that we can free your other self—"

Obito shook his head. "He won't let you. What part isn't under the control's influence, just wants to die. And the rest will kill you to prevent his own freedom."

"Then he dies," Inoichi said. Minato and the adult Kakashi glared at him. Minato's team, even Obito, looked shocked at Inoichi's callousness. Kushina opened her mouth, her hair waving menacingly. "But don't rule out our chances of capturing him just yet."

* * *

A pawn of his best pawn still loved Konoha. That could cause problems if Black Zetsu moved against Konoha. But he had to do something. It was bad enough that the Yellow Flash and his wife were alive again—leave it to Orochimaru to shit all over things—but now the second Obito endangered control over the original.

Black Zetsu paced rapidly in their Akatsuki room as he considered the implications of that. Clearly the two were not as linked as the Zetsu, but the link could do damage. He had to cut it off at the source. And prevent Konoha from regaining its feet. Black Zetsu had no choice.

He had to instruct Obito to bring _that one_ under his full influence.

* * *

A dark eye widened as an orange-masked figure rippled into existence before him. A swirling Sharingan blazed behind the mask. Pale white figures also rippled into existence. "We have unfinished business, you and I…"


End file.
